


I'll Be Home For Christmas

by LumosLyra



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Pining, Royal Air Force, coming home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27699599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LumosLyra/pseuds/LumosLyra
Summary: Draco Malfoy waits for the love of his life, Lily Luna Potter, to come home for Christmas for the first time in three years.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Lily Luna Potter
Comments: 14
Kudos: 20
Collections: The Marauders Advent 2020





	I'll Be Home For Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Marauders' Advent 2020 fest! Thank you to Kristeristerin for beta-ing! Happy Holidays!

It feels like years since he’s seen her. 

And in many ways, it has been. 

He’s only been able to spend a few days with her out of the year and it kills him every time she has to leave. She’s been stationed overseas, so those days are few and far between and even then, she has to make time for her family as well as for him. And as much as he’d like to keep her home and in his bed until the moment she has to leave him again, he doesn’t. 

He sends her letters and care packages, telling her how much he loves her and misses her and hopes to see her soon. She responds, sometimes her letters are short and other times they span multiple pages of lined parchment with frayed edges. 

Sometimes, the letters come with teardrops marring the ink and he wants to whisk her away from the pain of losing a member of her command or missing home. 

But she loves it, and he can’t take that from her. 

“It’s so different from flying on a broom, Draco,” she’s said so many times, her eyes lighting up in sheer joy. “The mechanics are the same, but I can’t even describe how it makes me feel.” 

When she first told him she intended to enlist in the British Royal Air Force, he’d given her a blank stare until she explained she wanted to be a navigator. She’d always been fascinated with maps and bearings, the large mural on the wall of her home with small aircraft and tracking systems that moved non-stop should have been his first clue. But it required leaving for training for several months followed by a mandatory three year service. 

And while he filled his days with work, his son, and other familial duties, the quiet nights without her safely tucked into his side were almost too much to bear.

The moment she enlisted he begins to educate himself, even going so far as to purchase a small private plane and install an airfield on the grounds where the Manor once stood. He’s taken flying lessons and studied the structure of the RAF so much he can recite it almost from memory.

And he understands what she means about flying now that he’s flown his own little biplane over England.

It’s different than riding a broom. There’s something about the hum of the engine, which initially terrified him, that now soothes something in his soul. And he wants to share that with her. He wants to gift her her own airport and shower her with rare and antique craft and watch her face light up when they’re able to fly together. 

But it will be a while yet before they’re able to do that. 

And even know he knows and understands, it doesn’t lessen his longing for her to be home. 

“I’ll be home for Christmas,” she wrote in her last letter and while he knows her service time is ending, she hasn’t been forthcoming about whether or not she intends to re-enlist for active duty. She’s young, much younger than him and though he loves her to the point of distraction, she’s as stubborn as her father and tenacious as her mother which means that he can give his opinion, but she will do what she wants regardless. 

And he’ll let her, simply because he knows that some day, when she’s ready, she’ll come home and let him love her day in and day out. 

Not that he doesn’t now. 

But he longs for the days where they can spend a week in Italy or a month in Peru, sipping fruit-infused waters and visiting historic sites or lazing about on the beach. Truthfully, he longs for simple things, like having her to himself for more than just a few days and the scent of her perfume coating the lining of his favorite light jacket he wears in the autumn.

He wants her days, her nights—wants  _ her _ for a lifetime. 

The ring has been made for months. Something new and suited to her, not any of the women in his family who have come before. He sorted through every last jewelry case in his vaults and not one of them fit her. Not one of them held her vibrancy or tenacity and when the last ancestral ring was tucked away, he owled the family jeweler and had a new one made, just for her. 

It burns a hole in his pocket when he waits in Godric’s Hollow for her to arrive. He’s friendly with her parents and while Potter hexed him the moment Lily blurted out they were dating over the non-alcoholic mimosas they drank out of respect for Victoire’s pregnancy, her family has largely come to terms with their relationship. 

Even if Potter still gives him the side eye now and again when the subject of his daughter and Draco’s girlfriend comes up over golf at the country club Draco insisted they join. 

The day it happened, Ginevra and Lily defended his honor before he could even draw his wand and Potter was cursed with antlers and bats flying out of his nose for two days. He may have loved her then, no matter how new it still was. Luckily, his own son was training to become a healer since Hermione was on shift at St. Mungos that day, and his nose healed nicely without any scarring. 

Even still, he waits in the sitting room, wringing his hands together as his eyes dart between the door and the floo. It wouldn’t surprise him if Lily arrives the muggle way. Merlin knows she’s been living like a muggle for the past several years and those habits aren’t easily shaken. He should know, he was forced to live as one for three years after graduation as part of his probation. He still prefers to make tea and coffee the muggle way and takes the tube on occasion instead of apparating, just to people watch and be anonymous for a while.

A hand settles on his shoulder and Hermione smiles down at him. “I know she’s missed you.” 

He laughs, mainly to fill the air with some sound other than the blood rushing through his ears. “I suspect she’s been too busy to think about me much.” 

Hermione squeezes his shoulder. “She writes home about you and while she might not tell Harry and Ginny about you, she seems to think Aunt Hermione capable of handling the details.” 

He groans and leans over to rest his elbows on his knees, dropping his head into his hands. “I’m not drunk enough for this conversation.” 

Hermione chuckles and steps around the sofa, sitting on the arm next to him. “I’m not certain I’ll ever be drunk enough.” 

“Good, that means we don’t have to have it.” 

“She loves you,” Hermione says, and he focuses on the sound of her shoe tapping against the strip of wood visible between the sofa and the rug to keep himself from going mad knowing Lily could walk through the door at any moment. 

“I love her,” he says and he feels it with every fibre of his being. Loving Astoria was hard, harder than he ever expected and while he still holds fond memories of his late wife, watching her choose to die of her blood curse rather than allowing a breaker to try and cure her nearly broke him. Truthfully, he hadn’t expected to find love again. He poured his love into his son and expected to spend his days as a widower until he met her as an adult on her own terms. 

His son had played with Potter and Weasley’s children growing up, so of course, he’d known who she was. Hadn’t given her a second though, but years after graduation from Hogwarts and obtaining a Mastery in arithmancy, she met him at a Quidditch match and spoke to him as if they were old friends. He’d tried to ignore his feelings, Merlin knew she was years younger than him, but when his own son gave his blessing and told him she was moping about at his apparent lack of interest, he caught her that day as she was leaving her flat and kissed her in the rain. 

He loved her then and he loves her now. It’s easy, like breathing. Something that comes from within him, perfect in its automaticity. It’s made him ponder the existence of absurd notions like destiny and soulmates, or perhaps Hermione's no-nonsense attitude when it comes to all things divination has rubbed off on him.

He takes the box out of his pocket to show his second favorite witch what he’s purchased for her niece, and before he even has a chance to open it to show Hermione, she's doubled over in laughter.

He stares at her for a moment, tucking the box away once more, thankful they’re alone in the sitting room for the moment, though he wouldn't be surprised if her husband rushed through the doors with how absurdly loud she’s being. “Did someone slip you a laughing potion? You didn’t let George near your drink, did you?” 

“Harry…  _ Harry _ will be your father-in-law if… oh God, Draco! You! Draco Malfoy, the son-in-law of Harry Potter.” 

He tilts his head and looks at her out of his periphery, “Granger?” he says quietly, his voice firm. 

She’s still snickering like some school girl who has just managed to use a naughty word in an innocent context for the first time. “Yes?” 

“Kindly fuck off.” 

He dodges the arm that reaches out to swat him and is on his feet when the front door to the Potter’s home in Godric’s Hollow suddenly swings open. His breath catches in his throat when she walks through the door, dressed neatly in her service dress uniform. 

She removes her cap and sets it carefully down on the sideboard in the entryway before removing her bag from her pocket and enlarging it with a swish of her wand, depositing it beneath the table. 

The world around him fades away and they might as well be the only two people left on earth. He no longer hears the laughter from the kitchens or Hermine’s quietly fading footsteps as he rises from the sofa and swiftly meets her in the entryway. He’s at her side in a moment, hands sinking into her dark red hair and pulling her face to his. His lips meet hers and warmth blooms in his chest with each soft sigh he pulls from her mouth as she winds her arms around his neck. His fingers curl around the back of her head as his other hand finds its way to the small of her back to pull her impossibly closer. 

She pulls back and leans her head forward and his lips land there as he tightens both of his arms around her, leaving her tidy bun a mess and her uniform rumpled. 

“I missed you, Draco,” she says and her voice soothes him like a balm to a wound. 

“I love you,” he says. It’s something he never wants to stop saying. Something he wants to tell her day in and day out. He wants to still be saying it twenty Christmases from now whether they’re in Godric’s Hollow or his home— _ their  _ home in Knightsbridge. “I can’t believe you’ve finally come home—that you’re here, Lily.” 

She smiles up at him, her lips brushing his chin and he finds himself lost in her hazel eyes. “I told you I would be home for Christmas.” 

“And I’ve managed to deliver on the snow, mistletoe and presents under the tree.” He winks and she laughs at his terrible joke and he feels the press of her lips against his chin. 

“Did you manage to somehow charm the weather?” 

“I may have bribed your aunt,” he says, leaning down to nuzzle his nose against hers. “If anyone knows how to guarantee snow on Christmas, it’s that witch.” 

She nods, her hands pressing into his shoulders as she rises up on her toes and kisses him again. It’s short, sweet, and  _ bloody perfect _ .

“Draco?” Her voice is quiet when she speaks and he can just make out the sparkle of unshed tears in her eyes. “I don’t ever want to spend another Christmas alone.” 

“You’ll never have to, not as long as I have breath in my body.”

“I love you,” she says and tugs him down for another kiss, her lips pillowed and soft against his own and his arms tighten around her, desperate to make up for years of missing her and desperate to keep her here. 

He lifts her and spins her around, joy radiating off of him that the woman he loves has finally come home and he sets it in his mind to propose to her tonight and marry her tomorrow at Gretna Green if she’ll have him. 

And she does, giving him the best Christmas gift of all, in the small hours of the morning after they’ve taken their fill of one another, by lovingly whispering that the second Mrs. Draco Malfoy will be home for Christmas from there on out. 


End file.
